Student sees NASA up close and personal

Sunday

Lauren Maloney’s goals may have shifted since attending last week’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery as a guest of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Lauren Maloney’s goals may have shifted since attending last week’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery as a guest of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The Plymouth North High School senior still plans to pursue a career in medicine after she graduates next spring. But the work may very well lead her into space.

Maloney was one of three high school students from across America invited by NASA to Cape Canaveral, Fla., for a panel discussion on how to excite a new generation of scientists for the next trip to the moon.

Maloney toured the space facility, lunched with astronaut Ricky Arnold and got a VIP seat for Tuesday morning’s launch of the space shuttle.

“It was absolutely amazing. Unbelievable,” Maloney said. “You could feel the shock waves when it took off. You can see my hand shaking on the video. Everything was shaking.

“Let’s just say the Plymouth fireworks are not going to be as spectacular as they used to be.”

Maloney was recommended for the panel by Intel Corp. She has represented Massachusetts in two of the last three years at the Intel International Science Fair, the Olympics of pre-collegiate science.

Her continuing experiments with plants are now looking at maximizing growth in closed environments such as the international space station.

Dr. Joyce Winterton, assistant administrator for education at NASA, said the panel of space professionals and educators explored ways to interest top achieving students in careers in the space industry.

NASA will return to the moon in the next decade and plans to man a lunar station by 2020 but is already looking at the retirement of most of the scientists who engineered the first trips to the moon. A new generation is needed for the venture.

“Her generation is going to be the engineers and scientists that make it happen,” Winterton said.

Maloney shared the story of how a Lego Robotics competition awakened her interest in science and technology while she was a fifth-grader at Federal Furnace Elementary School.

She started experimenting with hydroponics plant growth in the dining room of her West Plymouth home while a student at Plymouth Community Intermediate School.

She started working with beans but switched to sunflowers after realizing the long hours of work were ruining her appetite for the vegetable. Last year, she used a chemical from a growth hormone that could inhibit stem cell growth. By strategically applying the chemical she was able to bend the plant at will. She hopes to grow a highly compact version that could maximize oxygen and fruit production in space. NASA is working on similar projects for lunar stations that will house astronauts for up to six months at a stretch.

Maloney, who worked with a college professor on her most recent experiment, told panelists NASA needs to engage students at an early age and provide the advanced support to maintain their interest. She suggested NASA might openly advertise on television like the Army and Marine Corps and proposed an interactive Web site that would allow students to chat with astronauts and even offer suggestions when NASA engineers are faced with new challenges.

Perhaps even more important would be getting out the word that NASA already offers tremendous opportunities for motivated high school students.

Winterton said it is clear that top achievers in high school will be best served by teaming with up professors or graduate students in college.

Winterton said NASA also learned it needs to find an Internet vehicle to make its mission and offerings more available to students.

It is already working for Maloney. While at NASA, she made contacts with a doctoral student from MIT who is working on an experiment on the space station. She is also exploring the possibility of a six-month internship with the space agency.

Maloney still hopes to become a doctor but may have found a new direction for her medical studies. While in Florida, she learned one of the Discovery mission specialists is an emergency room physician going into space to conduct experiments.

Some day Dr. Maloney might be growing sunflowers in space.

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